The new all-screen LG G6 flagship takes us back to the smartphone basics

Today, LG has announced its 2017 flagship smartphone the LG G6, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, turning away from its gimmicky modular G5 flagship of 2016 to a straight forward sleek and solid design.

The G6’s kicks of the latest wave of how high-end phones for 2017 will look and feel and the design is all about large screens with as much less bezel as possible. Following the trend set by Chinese phone maker Xiaomi last year with the MI Mix, LG has also reduced the bezels surrounding the screen. The 5.7-inch LCD has a resolution of 2880 x 1440, giving it a taller 18:9 aspect ratio which is it’s exactly twice as tall as it is wide.

By increasing the height of the screen rather than just stretching it diagonally, LG has created a phone with very manageable width that doesn’t sacrifice the ability to display a lot of content at once. The display’s corners have also been rounded off, evoking the softer edges of the device itself, although the curves don’t match exactly. The G6 is dominated by this screen, with the small bezels allowing 80 percent of the front of the device to be given over to the display.

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The power button and fingerprint sensor are both located at the back of the phone. The G6 is made of a solid metal and glass construction with a mix of 3 different types of corning’s Gorilla glass. It comes in at 7.9mm thickness, and designed to be water- and dust-resistant, rated at IP68.

Two 13 Megapixel cameras at the back

When it comes to camera layout, like the G5, the G6 has two cameras on the rear of the device, one with a normal lens and another that shoots at a wide angle. The front facing camera is a 5 megapixel set up. Unlike the G5, however, the G6’s wide-angle camera is getting nearly equal treatment — both modules use the same 13-megapixel sensor, meaning that image quality from each should be much closer.

The camera is one of the areas LG has focused on with the G6’s software, dubbed “Fullscreen UX.” They have redesigned the camera app to suit the user’s needs. The G6 will also be one of the first major phones to ship with the Google Assistant, which has previously been limited to Google’s own Pixel phones.

The Internal Hardware

The G6 has a few items on its spec sheet that might turn heads. The battery is a non-removable 3300mAh battery that and can charge to 100 percent in a speedy 96 minutes. LG has decided to embed the battery this time round in order to cater for the necessary for water resistance.

It comes with the latest version of Android, 7.1 Nougat running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor, as opposed to the brand-new 835. LG said that this decision was taken because its engineers are more familiar with the design and therefore able to make the phone more reliable; the company also worked with Qualcomm to adapt an 835 feature that simulates smooth optical zoom between two camera lenses to the 821.

Samsung’s S8 will most probably outgun the G6 in terms of performance, and a lot of people will be waiting to see how LG’s great local nemesis strikes back following the Note 7 debacle. And Chinese giant Huawei will be looking to make a further global impact this year after 2016’s encouraging P9.